then-Rep. Carl Elliott of Alabama. One of the major recommendations of the Elliott committee was to create in the Government Operations Committee a subcommittee to act as a watchdog over the administrative details of federal R&D programs. The abolition of these two subcommittees, founded to oversee the administration of research programs, can be looked at in two ways. On the one hand, it might be said that Congress has lost a potentially valuable tool for overseeing agency research operations. On the other hand, it can be argued that the demise is not really much of a loss because both committees accomplished little, if anything, in their brief lifespans. However, the question of whether the lack of achievement was due to deficiencies in the committees or was forced on the newcomers by the refusal of established committees to give up any of their traditional and legally established fields of oversight is moot. There are two reasons why the Reuss subcommittee was not reconstituted this year, a spokesman for the House Government Operations Committee tells C&EN. One is economy. Committees are not getting as much money this year to conduct their operations, so something must be cut. The other is the fact that many members of the parent committee are grumbling about the proliferation of subcommittees because too much time is taken up in subcommittee activities that might be better spent elsewhere. So the Reuss subcommittee, the most junior of the subcommittees, got the ax. Two other factors hastened the move, the committee spokesman said. Some of the work the Reuss subcommittee could have been doing has been done for years by other Government Operations Committee subcommittees. For example, the Subcommittee on Interdepartmental Relations (Fountain committee) has been riding herd on the research grants programs of the National Institutes of Health. The other factor is that last year the House Committee on Administration condemned the Reuss group as one of the least productive subcommittees in the House. However, chances are, although no one will discuss this publicly, that the real reason for the lack of productivity is the absence of authority to investigate anything important. This stems from the refusal of established committees to give up any of their areas of authority over science programs or agencies which conduct or support science programs. Rep. George Miller (D.-Calif.), chairman of the Committee on Science and Astronautics and member of the El-
liott committee, put the Establishment view pretty plainly in 1965 when he commented on the report that proposed, among other things, to set up what became the Reuss subcommittee: "I cannot subscribe to the recommendations and proposals of this report."
GRANTS:
Waiting on H.R. 35 Don't take any action on H.R. 35 for at least a year. This was the message delivered by the U.S. Office of Education to Rep. Emilio Q. Daddario (D.Conn.) at the final day of hearings on H.R. 35, a bill to establish a system of unrestricted institutional grants to improve the quality of graduate science education. The principal reason for withholding action, Peter F. Muirhead, acting commissioner of education, told Rep. Daddario's Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Development is that
year they ask for deferment until another study is finished. "How long must we wait?" Rep. Daddario asked. But Mr. Muirhead insisted that any action would be premature until the studies cited had been completed. Regardless of the outcome of studies on federal aid for higher education, USOE does not like H.R. 35. The reason for the opposition is that aid is restricted to the sciences both "hard" (physical sciences) and "soft" (social sciences). Said Mr. Muirhead, "By limiting its application to the sciences, H.R. 35 deals with only a small part of the problem facing colleges and universities today. By focusing on the sciences at the expense of the humanities, H.R. 35 has the potential of creating more problems for some institutions than it would solve. There is a distinct danger that some college curricula would become imbalanced, consciously or unconsciously, in favor of the sciences which would attract additional funds to the institution." Two recent reports on federal aid to higher education also tend to downgrade the grant program proposed in H.R.. 35, Mr. Muirhead pointed out. One study is HEW's so-called Rivlin report; the other is the report of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. "Neither of these studies placed institutional support at the head of its recommendations for federal assistance to colleges and universities," Mr. Muirhead said. "Rather, both made student financial aid a matter of highest priority."
DRUGS:
Illicit Labs Seized Office of Education's Muirhead One more study to complete
his department is making a massive study of federal programs of aid to education. This study, made at the request of President Nixon, includes aid to higher education. In addition, Congress last year called for the President to report by the end of 1969 on the feasibility of making available a postsecondary education to all young Americans who qualify for it and seek it. "Until these studies are completed," Mr. Muirhead said, "we urge that the committee defer action on this bill." This suggestion left Rep. Daddario somewhat disenchanted. He said that last year at hearings on a similar bill the Office of Education asked the committee to defer action until a certain study had been completed. This
Special agents of the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) have seized 95 illicit drug laboratories in the past three years, John W. Gunn, Jr., of BNDD told the 21st Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) in Chicago. These laboratories had a combined capability of producing drugs worth up to $3 million per day on the illicit market, Mr. Gunn and his BNDD associates, W. P. Butler and D. W. Johnson, estimate. The raided laboratories ranged in size from large, sophisticated installations that have equipment such as high-pressure hydrogénation apparatus, vacuum pumps, and distillation columns, to very crude operations carried on in bathrooms, basements, garages, and abandoned warehouses. Federal agents have encountered illicit production of various hallucinogenic and stimulant drugs by amateurs MARCH 10f 1969 C&EN
11
THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
in collecting and preserving evidence. A major problem facing the forensic chemist is the fraudulently illicit sample, Dr. Albert Sperling, a B N D D chemist, points out. For instance, a material is sold as some potent exotic drug. But upon analysis, it turns out to be something else such as ground orange peels or a simple drug such as aspirin or ascorbic acid, Dr. Sperling told the AAFS meeting. In this kind of sample, there is everything to look for and often nothing to find, Dr. Sperling says. In raiding an illicit laboratory, the chemist may have to identify some precursors involved in synthesis to prove that illegal drugs were being manufactured. For example, the presence of phenylacetone is strong indication that amphetamine is being synthesized. And indole, dimethylam ine, and lithium aluminum hydride are starting materials for a synthesis of D M T (ZV,N-dimethyl tryptamine, a hallucinogen called the "business man's special" because of its short duration of action, one hour or less). Bathroom lab for illicit drugs Adding up to $3 million a day
as well as accomplished chemists. Some of the more sophisticated entrepreneurs have achieved production approaching commercial scale. Illegal possession of depressant, stimulant, and hallucinogenic drugs for personal use is punishable as a misdemeanor with imprisonment of one year and a $1000 fine or both, Mr. Gunn adds. And possession with intent to sell is a felony, subject to imprisonment of up to five years, a fine of up to $10,000, or both. "Many of these clandestine manufacturers can use the scientific literature as well as any chemistry graduate student," Mr. Gunn says. "And advances in copying machines have also aided these people to get needed scientific information," he adds. Besides the stimulants, amphetamine and methamphetamine, nearly all the hallucinogenic drugs on the market today have been produced in illicit laboratories. The drugs include LSD, D M T , mescaline, psilocybin, and phencyclidine (also known as the "peace pill"). In closing down clandestine laboratories, the forensic chemist can be an important member of the enforcement team, Mr. Gunn points out. The chemist can aid in obtaining the search warrant by describing equipment and chemicals involved, distinctive odors, and even identifying the drug being produced from these earmarks. After a raid, the forensic chemist can help 12 C&EN MARCH 10, 1969
RESEARCH STRIKE:
Opposed, Ignored Last Tuesday's symbolic one-day research strike apparently stopped little research. Designed to draw university scientists' attention to their role in matters of defense, the strike may have engendered more opposition than support on some campuses. On other campuses the research strike was ignored. However, even the idea of such a strike generated a lot of discussion on the question of federal government research priorities, which are now heavily weighted toward military technology, and other science policy issues. As Dr. John Ross, chairman of the chemistry department of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out to C&EN, "The strike was a gesture. The important thing about it will be what happens afterwards." The strike was originally proposed by a student-faculty group at M I T (C&EN, Feb. 3, page 29) to protest what it called "governmental misuse of science and technology." The idea of a research strike soon spread to other campuses. According to an official spokesman at the school, "The strike had no noticeable effect on the normal operations at M I T . " However, a campus meeting on science policy did cause enough M I T personnel to break their usual routines last Tuesday to keep an auditorium with 1200-seat
capacity full for most of the day. The major opposition last week was not to the need for more discussion of science issues but to the use of a research strike as a weapon. For instance, Dr. Benjamin P. Dailey, chairman of the chemistry department of Columbia University, tells C&EN, "I damn well did not endorse the research stoppage." His department didn't either. Only 11, including no faculty, of the 170 chemical researchers signed up for the strike. Dr. Dailey points out that substantially more of Columbia's science faculty attended an evening forum than attended science policy workshops held during the day and associated with a call for a strike. There was no research stoppage at Harvard and no meetings on campus. Dr. Paul D. Bartlett of the chemistry department there points out that Harvard does not engage in contract or classified work. H e says, "The idea to associate a research stoppage with a discussion of the public use of science seems to me inappropriate. W e are all very concerned about the use made of science, b u t meanwhile let's get our research done." In the Midwest 83 persons staged a 16-hour work-in at Argonne National Laboratory to express opposition to any research stoppage. Some other Argonne personnel took a day's leave to attend an all-day teach-in at Northwestern University. At the University of Wisconsin in Madison there was no strike. But 500 students and faculty attended a late afternoon teach-in on the "misuse of science." There was also an all-day discussion session at Case Western Reserve University on the social responsibilities of science.
PESTICIDES:
Industry Losing Battle W h e n ecologists assemble to discuss pest control, the pesticide industry usually is given a scornful back of the hand. But in Tallahassee, Fla., at a meeting on habitat management in control of pests, insect ecologists gave pesticide makers some stern but friendly advice. The industry is losing its battle against agricultural pests, the ecologists said, and it is time to begin re-evaluating things, ecologically. "I would hate to see D D T completely banned," said Dr. E. V. Komarek, director of the private Tall Timbers Research Center which sponsored the conference. "But, we've got to develop a meeting ground for using pesticides properly." Definition of "properly" in this case is integrating pesticide use with ecological insights.
